There are already several threads addressing faculty/community perspectives and interactions as well as letters to the editor and their potential effect. I thought I would make a few suggestions for points faculty could make that would enable non-academics to relate more effectively to the tension between faculty and the SFt administration. I am in Hattiesburg frequently and my anecdotal perspective from talking with people through business and personal interactions is that there is a lot of interest in what happens at USM, and all of what I have encountered has been very negative toward Thames. The people who have broached the topic with me have folks such as insurance agents, realtors, wives of retired faculty, small business owners, and so forth.

As I said, my information is anecdotal, but I do think there is broad support for faculty and students at least in the overall business community. I also think we can make some inroads with neutral or negative community people by using analogies that will allow people who do not know much about university operations relate to our problems. So, I thought I would list a few idea I have been accumulating as I read the posts. (Sorry about the we, but I can't seem to shake that USM connection.)

1.  Most people in the community probably can't relate very much to the idea of shared governance. They don't know what it means, exactly, and it certainly is not as easily understood in a business environment. Drawing analogies between that concept and the democratic model of government would help bridge that gap, particularly if specific examples were used to help with the analogy.

2.  Some posters on the board have done an excellent job of drawing an anology between Thames' treatment of faculty and the way a bad professor treats students (no criteria for grades, failure for speaking out, playing favorites, etc.). That would find sympathy in the community, particularly if the topic is introduced from the prospective of the individuals reading the letter or members of their family.

3.  My perspective from participation on this board is that faculty are devastated about the destruction of the learning and teaching environment at USM. Often this isn't what comes through with the letters that are printed, yet it is the underlying cause of discontent. Letters that stress concern about being able to maintain accreditation, about poor teaching environments in huge classes and insufficient sections to meet student needs, about losing experienced faculty in program areas having no experienced faculty left, uneven and inequitable distribution of teaching and research resources to faculty resulting in a direct impact on students of those faculty. These are all issues that community people can understand quite easily, as they impact the quality of education the students (them/their family members) receive and may seriously impact their employability if accreditation is lost.

4.  Many letters, and even lists I have seen drawn up by Faculty Senate refer to specific actions taken by Thames that are very easily understood by faculty but may need more interpretation for the broader community. They don't know about reorganization, but what they can understand is the need for experts in the field to be in control of curriculum and programs in their fields. Would you want an engineer to be in charge of decisions about the music program or a musician to make decisions about nursing?

5.  Another point all too frequently omitted from letters is that the objection to Thames is not just about specific actions as it is about a culture of deceit, an absence of self-regulation, a disregard for quality or even mediocre intelligence among administrators, and a mockery of what education is about. Thames is not in charge of a private business here, and what he does with taxpayers' money is very much the business of taxpayers, including faculty.

6.  Respect and obedience are not automatic with getting a job, and questioning authority figures is what leads to exposure of enormous wrongdoing. The Catholic church is now dealing with years of authority figures' denials of such questioning; Enron and World Com are business examples, as is the recent insurance scandal involving Mississippi and other states. Are people good, smart, and right because they have certain jobs, as Klumb would implly? No. An no person should be above the law or above the rules that their colleagues live by. We want honesty so that we can have trust. What are our students learning about ethics when they observe their University leaders lying, getting caught, and getting away.

7.  Similar to the above, but there are relatively no checks and balances in our MS system of higher education.Once appointed, a president can pretty much do anything except major illegal stuff that the authorities can't manage to cover up. The faculty and staff and students who object to wrongdoing and bring it to the public's attention are serving as just about the only means of checking the power of a corrupt administration.

8.  It might be helpful to frame letters, at least at some point, of positive changes you wish to see occur at USM. This is an indirect way of expressing negative things about the current administration, but it really gets at what most of you are about.  You want a restoration of the environment that held such promise for the University. A discussion of some very specific, positive changes you are working toward might be the approach that the media and the commuity would find compelling.

Sorry for the length. I'm waiting on a roast to brown and trying to remember trains of thought, or maybe just even a few wayward cars, that I've had over the past few months reading the boards.